UNP and Opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe yesterday said that if the UNP came to power it would not pay back what he termed illegal loans obtained by the present government. He alleged that the government had received a number of ‘illegal loans’ from various countries.

The UNP would also pass laws to implement the UN Convention on corruption, to which Sri Lanka had been a signatory since 2004, Wickremasinghe told the media at his office yesterday.

He said that the country had been mortgaged to foreign nations as the government had taken numerous loans on the pretext of  launching development programmes. The UNP had documentary evidence that the government had taken several unofficial loans at high interest rates.

The UNP leader said that Parliament would decide on the repayment of such loans.

Foreign debts posed a threat to the country’s economy, he said citing an HSBC loan as an example.

Wickremasinghe said that the Constitution had to be amended and the UNP had decided on a hybrid electoral system consisting of features of both PRand the first-past-the-post systems. Hundred and twenty-five MPs would be elected direct from the electorates, he said.

UNP Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya said that a concept of India’s Prime Minister Manamohan Sing had helped India generate employment through the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). The UNP had already formulated a plan to adopt the Business Process Outsourcing system to tackle the problem of unemployment.

SLFP (Mahajana Wing) leader Mangala Samaraweera said that politicization of the Samurdhi beneficiaries by the UPFA government was a national crime. It had been found that Samurdhi families who did not wish to support the ruling party were harassed and their benefits removed. The UNP had decided to assist all Samurdhi beneficiaries irrespective of political affiliations, he said.